"That's the whole thing: to obtain static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously.
If you don't have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon
you're back with the cave man. But if you don't have the freedom to change
those patterns you're blocked from any further growth."
I still don't get it. How can you have static and Dynamic Quality
simultaneously? Whenever I think about questions like this for too long, I
feel like I'm gonna go crazy. I feel Dynamic insanity nudging gently at my
mind. It drove Pirsig crazy for a while, so I guess if we're not careful it
could drive us crazy too.
In a way the question is pointless. We *do* have the static patterns of
scientific knowledge to build upon, and they aren't going anywhere. We *do*
have the freedom to change those patterns, and we're not blocked by any
further growth. In a way that paragraph is just a basic Pirsig platitude.
That paragraph, all by itself, is a static Quality entity. Platitudes are
static.
I'm sure it's been pointed out before, but the book itself (Lila), is an
embodiment of the Metaphysics of Quality. The book is almost a living
organism. It alternately pulses with Dynamic Quality and drags along with
static Quality (especially the scenes involving Pirsig doing chores on his
boat). The scenes with excessive details about the boat were very dull and
uninteresting, but static Quality *is* very dull and uninteresting. It was
essential for Pirsig to stuff the book with static Quality, otherwise the
book wouldn't be a pure embodiment of his Metaphysics of Quality. There's
probably more static Quality in the book than there is Dynamic Quality. This
is proper, since there is more static Quality in *life* than there is Dynamic
Quality.
I don't know if there's any escaping the dominance of static Quality. For
anyone. I think it is possible to obtain static and Dynamic Quality
simultaneously, but I think that static Quality is always the stronger, more
dominant form of Quality. I think only intellectual Dynamic Quality can
surpass (for brief moments) intellectual static Quality. On the power gauge
for all the various forms of Quality, only the intellectual variety ever gets
a Dynamic advantage. The only time Dynamic Quality truly rises above static
Quality is on the intellectual level. In our minds.
For the majority of our lives, I think, static Quality rules. Static Quality
enforced by patterns we wouldn't dream of doing away with. Maybe patterns is
the biggest enemy of all to Dynamic Quality, because we simply can't function
as a society or as individuals without patterns. We can no more escape from
the dominance of static Quality and patterns than we can escape from our own
bodies. It can't be done. Biological Quality, especially, is primarily
static. We eat, sleep, go to the bathroom. Our bodies do the same stuff day
after day until we die. There's no escaping it. So maybe all this means is
that Dynamic Quality is nothing but a mental phenomena?
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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